Many of you reading this probably know someone with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. You may even have it yourself. Over the years, it’s become common to caricature those with ADHD as disruptive schoolchildren causing havoc in the classroom. While this is certainly the case with some children with ADHD, most of the children I work with have the opposite problem. Their mind isn’t actually in the classroom at all, but a million miles away…
As someone who grew up with ADHD, I know what it’s like spending day after day in the classroom with your head in the clouds. I was fortunate (some might say unfortunate) to have parents who were overly laissez-faire with my education. Although had they been pushy parents, I assure you it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference. At school, there was this inner feeling of ‘I can’t be bothered’, which prevailed when I tried to concentrate. My mind would wander adrift. I’d feel a sense of shame for not having the same attention span as my peers. The exception to this was during geography, when I could keep my attention for over an hour at a time.
Otherwise, my time at school was pretty uneventful. Each disappointing grade I received would further reinforce the belief that I wasn’t good enough. Despite scraping through my GCSEs and A-levels, my inner critic kept convincing me that my brain was too slow to compete with the world. Belonging to a family of high achievers didn’t make things any easier.
It’s not that children with ADHD lack the intelligence or the will to study: rather, they have what’s known as an interest-based nervous system. The ADHD brain craves constant stimulation, which makes those with the condition particularly prone to boredom.
This is illustrated by a recent study, which found that children with ADHD have significantly higher levels of “proneness to boredom”.1 It’s hardly surprising that school can be a challenging environment given how children are forced to sit through lesson after lesson, many of which are of no interest to the child. But proneness to boredom applies just as much at home, at weekends, and when on holiday. The reason being that children with ADHD have a much harder task of filling up their spare time with fun and sensation-seeking activities.
Unfortunately, when children are bored, their energy is deprived of an outlet, which creates the perfect conditions for self-criticism and negativity to thrive. This can be harmful to the child’s mental wellbeing, both at home and in the classroom. For this reason, it’s so important to prevent children with ADHD from going through prolonged periods of inactivity. This is much easier said than done, especially when children are at home for a length of time. Throughout my coaching of inattentive children, ‘boredom’ is a theme that comes up again and again. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the case of inattentive children, it’s that the best remedy for boredom is to discover what energises them.
What inspires your child with the least effort? What can your child talk about for five minutes straight without any preparation? If your child could write a book on any subject, what would it be about? These are some of the questions I might ask to discover what gets a child buzzing. It will always involve the child using one or more of their character strengths, which is why understanding your child is so critical.
Some parents will find this harder than others; either because they don’t have the time or patience to engage in children’s activities, or perhaps the child simply hasn’t been fortunate to discover their interests yet. In the case where a child displays little interest in anything, this can be a real challenge. If your child has ADHD, the chances are that there is definitely something out there that sparks their interest. And when you discover it, your child will become fixated on it. This explains the tendency for many ADHDers to hyperfocus on a particular activity for hours at a time without interruption. Too much time spent on certain activities is often perceived as unhealthy, but from the child’s perspective, at least it keeps them out of their head.
Yet the answer to boredom doesn’t lie in one specific activity. Children with ADHD are attracted to novelty, hence their propensity to shift from one thing to the next. One helpful exercise is to compile a list of six ideas that your child can turn to in the event of imminent boredom. These don’t have to be messy, expensive, or inconvenient for parents, rather a range of engaging activities that your child can access unsupervised. For the list to be effective, it should contain both indoor and outdoor activities to ensure it covers all seasons.
One of the most memorable lists I’ve come across comprised of preparing a vegetable salad, snuggling with the cat, painting by numbers, Poohsticks in the park, cross-stitching and handwriting a letter to a friend. What I love about this list is that most of the activities are highly sensual. By drawing upon the child’s natural creativity and appreciation of beauty, the activities require the child to be fully present in the moment. Each child has a unique set of strengths and interests, which is fundamental to living life as their best authentic selves. The ultimate aim is to energise your child by working with their ADHD, not against it.
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Ben Isaacson is an ADHD coach and former schoolteacher with extensive experience supporting children with ADHD. He provides 1:1 coaching sessions for children aged 8–16. He lives in London where he spends much of his time blogging, listening to podcasts and preparing his favourite dish: leek and potato soup. adhdconfident.com
Photo by Vlada Karpovich
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Reference
- Pavel Golubchik et al., ‘Levels of Proneness to Boredom in Children with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder On and Off Methylphenidate Treatment’, Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 30 (2020), 173–176.
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Published in issue 78. Accurate at the time this issue went to print.
